Cass Sunstein's Ideas for Obama; Barack Obama on Arizona; Assaults on America

Complaining that the new media gives us so much information that it is confusing, often untrue, and counter-productive, President Obama said: "With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, -- none of which I know how to work [now, we all know he uses a Blackberry himself]  -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," Obama said.  [What?!!]

Salon.com [highly liberal] reports: Cass Sunstein is currently Obama's head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for "overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs."  In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-"independent" advocates to "cognitively infiltrate" online groups and websites -- as well as other activist groups -- which advocate views that Sunstein deems "false conspiracy theories" about the Government.  This would be designed to increase citizens' faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists. He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called "independent" credible voices to bolster the Government's messaging.[Big Brother is alive and well...]
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/15/sunstein
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"You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank all that high on the truth meter," President Obama said at [graduation at] Hampton University, Virginia.
"What Jefferson recognized... that in the long run, their improbable experiment -- called America -- wouldn't work if its citizens were uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out, and left democracy to those who didn't have the best interests of all the people at heart.
"It could only work if each of us stayed informed and engaged, if we held our government accountable, if we fulfilled the obligations of citizenship."  [Mr. President, I couldn't agree more.]
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hcoyG-Ck3-VwZB7fqpUFXbffoObg
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Meanwhile, WorldNetDaily opines:
In a lengthy academic paper, President Obama's regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, argued the U.S. government should ban "conspiracy theorizing."
Among the beliefs Sunstein would ban is advocating that the theory of global warming is a deliberate fraud.
Sunstein also recommended the government send agents to infiltrate "extremists who supply conspiracy theories" to disrupt the efforts of the "extremists" to propagate their theories.
We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories."
In the 30-page paper – obtained and reviewed by WND – Sunstein argues the best government response to "conspiracy theories" is "cognitive infiltration of extremist groups."
Sunstein said government agents "might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action."
Sunstein defined a conspiracy theory as "an effort to explain some event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role."
[I'll be sure to be on the lookout for infiltration.]
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=121884
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[Once again our President is pitting Americans against each other by making this supposedly cute joke]:"And we all know what happens in AZ when you don't have ID [Ha,Ha,Ha]  Adios, Amigos."
Please watch this political ad from AZ!    [I do believe he has no idea what being "Presidential" means.] http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/05/arizona-governor-jan-brewer-to-barack-obama-no-one-in-arizona-is-laughing-video/


Related, via Instapundit: A new poll finds 61 percent of voters nationally think Arizona was right to take action instead of waiting for the federal government to do something on immigration. That’s more than twice as many as the 27 percent who think securing the border is a federal responsibility and Arizona should have waited for Washington to act.
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After Arizona, why are 10 states considering immigration bills?  [This is a Christian Science Monitor headline.....]

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Fox News reports: The battle over the American flag has reached a middle school art class in California’s Santa Rita School District where a student was told not to draw Old Glory because it was “offensive,” while another student was praised for drawing a picture of President Obama.  [The Principal of the school has since yesterday disapproved this action, but the student has not yet received an apology.  I'm sure they would not refuse to have the class sing a song praising Obama and pledging to help his causes.  Also in CA was the school which sent students home for wearing a shirt which depicted the American Flag.  A UTube video displays a CA teacher who is fomenting a revolution by La Raza and Hispanics to take back America.  Isn't it a wonderful country?]
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From the Huffington Post (and many other places):  NEW YORK  [A 13-story mosque is to be opened] in a building damaged by debris from the Sept. 11 airliners that brought down the World Trade Center.  Some see the bridging of a cultural divide and an opportunity to serve a burgeoning, peaceful religious population. Others see a painful reminder of the religious extremism that killed their loved ones.
Two Muslim organizations have partnered to open the mosque and cultural center in lower Manhattan, saying the $100 million project will create a venue for mainstream Islam and a counterbalance to radicalism. It earned a key endorsement this week from influential community leaders.
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Ralph Peters writes about our government's classification of terrorists:  But the administration's biggest policy reversal to date came from [Eric Holder], the longtime advocate of terrorist "rights," who offered one of the most belated acknowledgments in history when he told a TV network, "We're now dealing with international terrorism."
Holder, of all people, now wants Congress to change the rules for Miranda rights, giving the government more time under a "public-safety exception" to permit extended questioning of terrorist suspects before arming them with lawyers.
And there wasn't a single mention of "man-caused disasters" this time around. Every administration point person talked "terrorism." Next thing you know, somebody in the White House will use the term "Islamist terrorist."
So what does this startling policy shift mean for you?
First, the administration has plainly realized that the terror danger is much higher than it believed one week ago.
Second, it means that Shahzad really has been talking -- almost certainly tipping us that there are more America-bound terror trainees out there (or already here) and letting us fit together important pieces of the intelligence puzzle.
Third, the White House obviously fears more terror attacks sooner rather than later.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/obama_wakes_up_w6FEwY0jqkQhBRfzaBTkyI#ixzz0neMBR7dr

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CNBC reports: But one rule-of-thumb formula puts potential US exposure [to bailing out Greece] at $54 billion should the entire IMF loan fund be tapped.
And that doesn't count the added exposure created by the Federal Reserve's decision over the weekend to participate in currency swaps to provide liquidity to jittery European banks. 
http://www.cnbc.com/id/37084075